Sixty Seconds
by RacingRosso
Summary: Nick/Yvonne: Sixty seconds. That's all it took for things to start going downhill. One minute she was standing there, trying to talk him out of pulling the trigger and the next she was on the floor. Set during Ricochet: What goes around comes around.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Well, where to start? I'm aware that some of you haven't seen hide nor hair of me for about a month or so, sorry about that. I'm also aware that I need to update War Torn and Silent Angel and I will do in due course, I promise. Just not entirely sure when yet.  
>This one is something a little different, well it's a different pairing. It is going to be a multi-chaptered fic but I can't promise regular updates. It will be updated as and when to be honest and I know that's not great but that's the best I can do at the moment. I'm not entirely sure that I've got either Nick or Yvonne exactly in character but if you think they're wildly out of character, let me know and I'll fix it. I've changed a few things round from Ricochet to fit in with this plot. Oh yeah and I think the legal stuff is sort of right, sort of anyway. Apologies if it's badly wrong.<br>**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything, Casualty belongs to the BBC. No copyright infringement intended. Any dialogue you recognise from Ricochet: What goes around comes around obviously belongs to Casualty as well.  
>Right, that's it from me now. I'll stop waffling on and let you read the chapter. I hope you like it and please do feel free to review and tell me what you thought.<br>This is dedicated to Anny and Callie. Love you both.

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><p><strong>Sixty Seconds<br>****Chapter 1**

"Stevie, put the gun down." Yvonne Rippon walked purposely but ever so slowly towards the obviously distraught teenager, not wanting to frighten him into doing anything stupid. She just hoped that no-one from the assembled crowd behind her, that mainly consisted of medical professionals, would decide to jump in and pretend to know anything about hostage negotiation. Effectively, that was what was needed here in that moment in time considering she had an emotional teenager holding his brother at gun point. Yvonne knew from bitter experience that a situation like this needed careful, experienced handling and she knew that the last thing she needed right now was one of the aforementioned medical staff, especially a particularly annoying male nurse, jumping in and doing something stupid like inadvertently winding Stevie up. If that happened, well the consequences just might be fatal for someone.

She cast a brief, sweeping glance around the department as she moved closer, her heels clicking on the hard floor. Her detective sergeant was missing again. She sighed, wondering where on earth he'd disappeared to now. He was either glued to her side like a particularly annoying puppy or off elsewhere doing his own thing without consulting her first. She just wished he'd make his mind up. As soon as this rather sticky situation she now found herself in had been resolved, she decided that he was for the high jump for disappearing. Again. Slowly, she returned her thoughts back to the potentially volatile situation she was involved in. "Stevie," she began, her voice adopting a soft note as her eyes took in the scene in front of her. Stevie was pointing the gun directly at Kris' chest. His hand was shaking violently, she noted. "You don't want to do this," she continued, realising that as she said those words, she was simply regurgitating all the expressions that every officer used when they found themselves thrown into a situation that involved negotiation of any kind. Why anyone couldn't come up with something a bit more original, she didn't know. She sighed inwardly, shaking herself mentally as she realised that her thoughts were rapidly steering off course. She had to keep focused especially seeing as she was attempting to talk to an emotional teenager – who's prominent emotion appeared to be anger towards his brother – pointing a gun at someone. Speaking of guns, she realised that she had no idea if this was the gun they were looking for or if it was a fake. If it was real, she had no way of knowing whether it was loaded or not but something told her that she didn't want to test that particular theory just yet.

"You're not like him," she broke the silence that had fallen over the E.D as she continued speaking to Stevie, who in her professional opinion seemed quite perplexed by the situation he'd gotten himself into. She just hoped that this situation wasn't about to take a turn for the worse. "Ok? You're nothing like him but if you do this then that is exactly what he wants." She paused briefly, moving forward again as she glanced quickly between Stevie and Kris. The former was still pointing the gun directly at Kris' chest. His hand was still shaking violently and Yvonne realised with horror that his finger was twitching towards the trigger. "Stevie?" She prompted again, wishing that he would move the gun away. She could see why this situation had occurred but that didn't mean she liked it, nor did she want to see blood splattered all over the E.D. Or two young lives ruined.

Stevie swung round to look at her, pure anger blazing in his eyes. As he moved, he pulled the gun away from Kris. Yvonne breathed a tiny sigh of relief, the gun was no longer pointing directly at anyone but she knew that could change. She kept her eyes on that gun, watching as Stevie waved it in the air above his head, causing several people to shriek and duck in fear. Yvonne took a deep, steadying breath trying to regain control of the adrenaline that was coursing through her body long enough so she could get everyone out of this situation safely. She vaguely became aware of the sound of sirens in the distance that were steadily coming closer and she really hoped that it wasn't who she thought it was. She hoped her D.S had enough sense not to let them storm in, all guns blazing, literally. Armed police storming in now would seriously complicate things, she knew that much from experience. They could possibly frighten Stevie enough to force him into doing something stupid like firing that damn gun. She didn't think he would but she wasn't a hundred percent sure on that. She just assumed that if he was going to do it, he would have done it already. Although she was quite aware that her assumption could turn out to be very wrong indeed.

Yvonne moved closer to Stevie, well aware that the sirens were getting closer and closer. She knew that she was placing herself in an impossibly dangerous situation but a tiny part of her didn't seem to care about herself at that moment in time. She just cared about stopping someone from getting hurt or even killed. Nothing else mattered, at least not at that moment. "You don't want to do this," she repeated, keeping her tone gentle, keeping one eye on Stevie and the other on that gun. "Y'know, if you do this then you'll be just as bad as he is. In fact you're just playing in to his hands by doing this." She took a deep breath before continuing. "If you shoot someone and they die, that's murder whether you meant to kill them or not." Technically, she knew that if someone did get shot unintentionally then it wasn't necessarily murder – it could be brought down to manslaughter but in this case, the intent to commit at least grievous bodily harm was there - well he was waving a gun around and if that wasn't intent to commit GBH then she didn't know what was - which probably meant that if anything should happen and someone should die, he would be charged with murder rather than GBH. "You could get life for murder. You don't want to spend the rest of your life rotting in some prison cell, do you? Because they won't be lenient with you, no matter how old you are. If you kill someone, that's it. Game over." She stopped speaking as she heard the sirens right outside the E.D and the sound of several car doors slamming almost in unison. She took another deep breath, well aware that this situation was probably about to get a whole lot worse.

Seconds later, her predictions came true and the doors to the emergency department were thrown open and a swarm of armed police officers rushed into the building, yelling out the fact that were armed. If she was honest, she never understood why they did that, it was pretty obvious they were armed, the gun they were holding probably wasn't for show. She sighed, realising her thoughts were going rapidly off track again – why did she keep doing that? It was obviously because she was nervous. She swallowed as she realised that Stevie's gun was now trained on her chest. When that had happened, she didn't know. "Stevie, listen to me." She held a hand up at the sergeant in charge, indicating that she had control of the situation and that they weren't to shoot or even come too close. Although she had signalled she was in control of the situation, she didn't feel like she had that much control. She felt that what was left of her control over the whole situation was rapidly slipping away. "You've got to put the gun down. No-one wants to hurt you, ok? We just want to help but we can't do that while you've got a gun in your hand. Just put it down and everything will be ok."

Stevie whirled round at her voice, keeping the gun firmly pointed at her. Yvonne took a steadying breath, aware that her hands were shaking, in fact her whole body was shaking. She recalled that she definitely couldn't remember the moment the gun had shifted focus from the air to her. Whether that was down to fear blocking it out or she just hadn't been paying attention, she didn't know at that moment in time. There would be plenty of time for examining her actions once everyone was safely out of this awful situation. Her eyes took in the detail of the gun, the long barrel, the dark colour and finally the shape of the gun. She knew then that this moment would be forever etched into her memory. She recalled that earlier she hadn't been sure whether it was a real gun or a fake one. But looking at it from this angle, it definitely looked like a real gun. Whether it was loaded or not was another matter but she was completely sure that she didn't want to test the 'was it loaded?' theory just yet.

She ran her tongue over her rapidly drying lips in an attempt to re-moisturise them. She knew that the fact she had dry lips was down to fear – she could feel her mouth drying up as well – nothing else. Not that Yvonne Rippon would ever admit she was scared. Well, at least not out loud anyway. "Stevie?" She began again, gaining his attention for the umpteenth time in the few minutes they'd been standing there. She could hear the thumping of feet as officers moved quietly as possible around, obviously moving people out of the way in case the situation began to get out of hand. "There's only way way out of this, y'know and that's to put the gun down. No-one wants to hurt you but if you don't put that gun down then they will be forced to take action and no-one wants you or anyone else to get hurt." She let her words sink in before she continued, hoping that she was doing the right thing by pointing out the danger, the pitfalls of whatever plan he had in mind. "You're holding a police officer at gun point Stevie, that's serious. You're waving a gun around in the middle of an emergency department. There are sick people here Stevie and this isn't helping anyone." She waved a hand to indicate their surrounding, knowing that there was little point to her hand gestures but they just seemed like the right thing to do in that moment. Maybe it was a way of convincing the onlookers that she had control or convincing herself. She wasn't sure and it was quite possible that she was over thinking things, again. She really had to stop her brain going off in tangents at the worst possible moments.

"They're goin' to shoot me." His rough accent pulled her out of her thoughts a mere few moments later as his eyes flicked from the sergeant in charge who had his gun trained on him to the officer stood in front of him. He couldn't even remember the moment that he'd taken his eye (and gun) off of Kris and had pointed the gun at her instead. This wasn't the plan, this had never been the plan but now he knew that he was in way over his head.

Yvonne shook her head, disputing his claims. "No, they don't want to." She replied quickly, knowing that was true. Armed officers never set out deliberately to hurt people, their aim was to resolve situations that involved firearms quickly and easily but sometimes to stop someone getting hurt, you had to shoot, she knew that much. In a way, she supposed, it was a bit like collateral damage. "But you're pointing a gun at me Stevie, that's serious. If you put the gun down then this whole situation can be resolved." She was aware that she was basically repeating everything she'd said earlier but she was hoping that it would do the trick. Going round in circles hadn't been her intention but if it worked then it was fine by her. She was attempting to do this "by the book" hoping that it would get them all out of this situation without anyone getting hurt.

She shifted her eyes from the gun to Stevie for a few moments, watching as he visibly relaxed. The gun was still pointing directly at her chest which wasn't doing much for her nerves but it seemed that her words were doing the trick and he was beginning to relax. It was much easier to resolve a situation once the person holding the gun was calmer rather than when they were tense, angry or in this case, fuelled on by emotions and quite probably hormones. The latter had fatal outcome written all over it, something which she was determined to avoid at all costs. Plus, she didn't want all the paperwork that was bound to accompany a fatal shooting by a civilian or a fatal shooting by a police officer – either of those situations was bound to result in months of paperwork.

She caught sight of a flash out of the corner of her eye that indicated someone, most probably an armed officer was on the move and she tried to keep her face blank, not wanting to let on that she was distracted. If he saw she was distracted and he started to look round to see why, he might well notice that they were closing in on him. If that happened, he might well panic and then, well she didn't want to consider the consequences, not any more. She moved her head slightly, catching sight of Nick Jordan hovering as he watched the events unfold. Part of her felt glad he was there, if something should happen, there wasn't a better doctor to deal with it. Of course, she wouldn't tell him that – it might inflate his ego.

A loud crash pulled her out of her thoughts and her heart dropped to her knees as she realised that one of the idiot new recruits to the armed team had tripped over something and was now lying on the floor. She swallowed nervously, watching Stevie as he whipped round again, obviously looking around for the armed team. She watched as his finger darted to the trigger as he panicked, realising that the armed officers were moving in on him. Time seem to slow down in those next few moments as she watched him pull the trigger.

Bang. Bang.

She heard the sound of the gun going off and then before she knew what was happening the bullets ripped through her side. Her knees buckled and she fell silently to the ground, trying not to cry out at the agonizing pain that was pulsating through her small body. She vaguely heard someone scream and the sound of feet rushing towards her. She heard what sounded like a scuffle and then those words that she'd been wanting to hear ever since she'd gotten herself into this situation.

"Police officer has the gun!"

She almost sighed with relief now, knowing that it was over. It was all over. They had the gun, the suspects. Everything just slotted into place now. The pain in her side was worsening and she was feeling sick now. Her vision was blurring and she could barely resist the temptation to give into her desire to sleep.

"Yvonne," Nick's voice broke through the cloud of dizziness that she was falling into. "Come on, open your eyes. Keep your eyes open, you're going to be fine." She felt him press something against the wound in her side and she gasped as pain shot through her body. His other hand went to her neck, his fingers expertly but gently seeking out the pulse point in her neck. They remained there for a few moments before they moved and she felt his fingers brush over hers in a reassuring manner. She vaguely realised that more people were arriving and someone else had taken over trying to stem the blood flow. She heard Nick speaking again but she couldn't quite make out what he was saying and then she was gently lifted and placed onto something hard, a trolley of some sort. She felt herself being wheeled along and she closed her eyes as she allowed herself to slip peacefully into the dark, peaceful depths of unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Hello again. This has taken me a while to update and I can only apologise. I can't tell you when the next update for this particular fic will be either - I don't know myself yet haha. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed - I'm glad you liked the first bit. The medical stuff is probably not as accurate as it could be - Dr. Google isn't exactly forthcoming when it comes to bullet wounds for some reason so I didn't have a major amount of information to work from when I wrote this chapter. If it's horribly wrong then I do apologise - let me know if it is and I'll fix it. I've changed things around a little for this so I have Sam in resus instead of wherever she'd disappeared to at this point in the episode. I have rewritten this chapter several times and I'm still not entirely happy with it but I figured that I just needed to post it - I'm driving myself round the twist with it. I hope you enjoy it and if you could leave a review that would be great. Thank you!  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I still own nothing - it all belongs to the BBC. No copyright infringement intended.  
>This is dedicated to Anny &amp; Callie because they're both amazing. Love you guys.<p>

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><p><strong>Sixty Seconds<br>****Chapter 2**

Pain. A terrible, excruciating pain radiating through her left side that made her want to cry out from the intensity of it. That was the first thing Yvonne became aware of as she forced her way back out of the inky black depths that had descended over her.

Voices. She could vaguely hear voices talking in hushed, urgent tones around her but generally she couldn't place them – she wasn't entirely sure who was in the room and who wasn't. She stayed still, listening for a few more moments. She could vaguely pick out Nick's voice amongst all the confusion. He was talking to her – the tone of his voice a lot softer than she'd ever heard it before – telling her that it was all going to be ok, that she was going to be ok.

Confusion. What had just happened? If she was completely honest with herself, she couldn't remember exactly what had happened. She vaguely remembered talking to someone, a kid – well she thought that they'd been more of a teenager – and then there had been this loud, deafening bang which had reverberated around the entire E.D. She thought she remembered falling but she wasn't sure. Then nothing. Just darkness.

Exhaustion. She was tired. Painfully tired. Her body felt like lead and her eyelids just wanted to stay tightly closed. Sleeping certainly sounded like a great plan to her at that moment in time. It was easier and less painful than trying to remember, that was for sure. Trying to remember specifics of the last few hours made her head throb painfully. It was far too exhausting and painful but surely a sleep would cure the crippling exhaustion and the sickening pain that was currently sweeping through her body. She'd never felt this level of exhaustion before and that fact alone made her think something was wrong but if she coupled it together with the pain she felt then she felt completely sure that something was wrong but what she didn't know. Maybe someone would fill her in at some point. That would be good. As she lay there, she could tell that there were different groups of people working around her – she could hear footsteps moving around the bed she was currently lying on – but she wasn't sure what they were doing. Different people kept coming and going, voices kept changing and she was struggling to keep up with the ever changing medical team. She just wanted a way out of this confusion.

"Yvonne." Nick's voice broke into her thoughts, startling her slightly. Not that she would ever admit that of course. "Come on, open your eyes."

What? Why was he asking her to do that? It was most annoying when all she wanted to do was sleep. It had been a long couple of days – the case that she had been working on had meant long, gruelling hours and she'd often found herself staying late back at the station. Now she was tired and in pain and the idea of sleep sounded blissful. Sleep usually helped, didn't it? She thought that doctors usually liked you to sleep but obviously not this particular doctor. Why he had to be so difficult, she really didn't know. As she listened to him talking to her, she noticed something that she hadn't noticed before. His voice sounded different, he sounded worried, anxious almost, like there was something he was worried about. What was he worried about? He couldn't be her, could it? No, why would he be worried about her? It didn't make sense. It was all too confusing, there were far too many questions and certainly not enough answers. But maybe she could work out the answers tomorrow when her brain felt a little less foggy, for want of a better description, and she could think a little more clearly. After she'd slept, surely she would feel better and then she would be able to figure everything out. She couldn't sleep until she'd done what he wanted her to do though. Once that was done, she could sleep. With all the energy she could muster up, she forced her eyes open for a few seconds, her grey eyes burning into his chocolate coloured orbs as she looked directly at him. She tried to keep her eyes open for as long as she could but another wave of crippling exhaustion rushed through her body and she found herself letting her eyes flutter shut again.

"No, don't close your eyes." His voice was back at her side again, trying to stop her from doing something she wanted to do. He was an infuriating man, he really was. At times she thought he was worse than that idiotic detective sergeant she had the pleasure of working with and that really was saying something. In the short space of time she'd known Nick, she'd felt such a wide range of emotions to him that it was exhausting her by just thinking about it.

Fighting her way out of the darkness once more, she forced her eyes open again, figuring that it was easier to make him happy. She had a feeling that he was just going to keep talking to her until she did what he wanted which was to stay awake. She knew that there was a reason he wanted her to stay awake but for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out. "W-what happened?" She was speaking now but the voice she heard didn't sound like hers and it certainly didn't feel like she was speaking. She managed to shift her body slightly, reawakening the pain in her side that she'd began to forget about. It was still there, worsening if anything but she wasn't going to complain. She just wanted to sleep. Maybe when she woke up, everything would be back to normal, whatever normal was.

There was a sudden surge of warmth that shot up her arm as his hand covered hers, the simple touch providing her with more comfort, more reassurance than she had ever thought a touch like that would, before he spoke again, his voice gentle. "You were shot. Now don't panic, you're going to be fine. Just let us look after you, eh?"

Shot? Well that did explain a lot. It definitely explained the pain in her side and that sound that she remembered hearing, now she thought about it, it had been consistent with a gunshot. She racked her brains, trying desperately to remember some more details about the incident. She couldn't remember specifics, something which irritated her a great deal. She was the sort of person who thrived on facts, figures and answers. Not knowing or not remembering the answers wasn't something she was used to and if she was honest, it wasn't something that she was necessarily comfortable with. She hated uncertainty and she just wanted someone to explain the events of the last few hours to her. There were so many questions buzzing around her head but her brain kept experiencing varying degrees of fog which made everything seem so much harder. Even simple things like staying awake and talking. At that moment in time all she wanted to know were things like who shot her and what exactly had happened that meant it had all accumulated in her getting shot. Those questions were on the tip of her tongue but before she could attempt to ask them, she heard Nick's voice at her side again.

"Don't try and speak, just stay nice and still for us. Good girl."

Good girl? What was she, five years old? She was definitely going to have words with him about his rather annoying, patronising way of speaking sometimes. Maybe not right now – her brain ached quite considerably due to the amount of confused thoughts that kept buzzing through her mind. She hadn't expected to be this confused and disorientated with her surroundings after something like this but she supposed it was normal. It was something she had to ask Nick about – he would know. She couldn't ask him now though, he'd told her rather firmly not to talk and it was easier, whilst her brain was this foggy, to just do as he told her rather than trying to argue with him. It was going to be put on the mental list of things to talk to him about after her sleep though. That much was for sure. She just hoped she would be able to remember all this tomorrow.

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><p>"Talk to me Sam, how's it looking?" Nick Jordan reluctantly tore his gaze away from Yvonne's too pale complexion and focused on his young registrar who was currently checking the wound in the superintendent's side with an expert eye.<p>

"Bleeding is coming slowly back under control." Sam paused as she concentrated on packing the wound with several more sterile pads before she continued speaking. "It looks more like a penetrating wound rather than a through and through but I can't quite see. It'll be a job for the surgeons at any rate."

Nick nodded once, indicating he'd heard her. He looked back at Yvonne, worried about the fact she appeared to be slipping in and out of consciousness. She seemed to have periods when she was alert but then she just seemed to stop fighting and give up therefore allowing herself to slip back into unconsciousness. He suspected part of the giving up on her part was because she was completely exhausted – she'd been looking more and more drained as the hours had ticked by. It had been a tiring couple of days and he was certainly feeling the strain of it so he could just about imagine how she must be feeling.

He turned his attention to the monitors she was currently hooked up to. They looked reasonable for the moment so he was quietly confident that his team had managed to stabilise her. Whether she stayed stable or not remained to be seen. He knew from experience that things could change in an instant, especially where serious injuries like crush injuries or even bullet wounds were concerned. There was still the very real possibility of her bleeding out, internal injuries, things along those sort of lines.

"Charlie, page the on-call GS surgeon." He instructed, part of him wondering why he hadn't thought to ensure this had been done already. He'd been so wrapped up in checking that Yvonne was ok that he hadn't thought about getting a surgeon down to look at her, not until Sam had mentioned it. He knew that he was playing with fire by delaying it but she did appear to be stable for the moment so right now, there was no need to rush her to theatre. She would have to have surgery, there was no doubt about it – that bullet needed to come out if it was still lodged in there – but it was always better if surgery was planned and performed when the patient was definitely stable rather than emergency surgery when the status of the patient could be all over the place.

A small pained moan escaped from Yvonne a few moments later which pulled him abruptly out of his thoughts. He turned to look at her, noticing that she'd lost a lot of colour whilst he'd been lost in his thoughts. She really didn't look well at all.

"Yvonne?" He placed his hand on her cheek to gain her attention, noticing that her skin was slightly clammy to the touch. "Is there anyone we can contact for you?" He inquired, knowing that he should have asked her this already.

A few more minutes ticked past before Yvonne made any attempt to reply. "N-no. Th-there's no-one." She managed to force out as pain clouded her pretty features again.

"Ok, take it easy." He removed his hand from her cheek and covered her hand with his again, hoping it would provide her with a small shred of comfort at the very least. His eyes moved back to the monitors and concern clenched his stomach as he noticed her SATS had dropped. It was only a slight drop but it was still a drop which wasn't at all good. "Any news on that surgeon yet?" He asked, hoping that he hadn't delayed for too long. He would never forgive himself if his delay had made Yvonne sicker than she already had been.

Charlie nodded as he replaced the phone on the hook before moving over to the bed. "Mr Spence is on his way down." He informed them.

Nick raised his eyebrows as he heard the name of said surgeon. "We are honoured." He commented dryly, catching sight of Charlie trying to hide a smirk out of the corner of his eye whereas Sam just looked confused. But then, he reminded himself, she hadn't really been around long enough to really get to know her colleagues upstairs and be more than just passing acquaintances with them but he knew that once she'd spent some time in the company of Michael Spence, she would realise what they meant.

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><p>American. She could hear an American accent as she came back to the world of the living once more. She couldn't tell how long she'd been out for but now she really was confused. First Nick talking to her, well that she could vaguely understand, but then he'd sounded worried and told her she'd been shot and now she had some random American man talking about her rather than to her which really irked her. She hated being talked about like she wasn't even present when in fact she actually was.<p>

Yvonne shifted uncomfortably, idly finding herself wondering whether she should actually be in more pain than she was. She'd seen bullet wounds first hand, hell she'd even caused one in her career once, and if there was anything she'd learnt about them it was that they were painful, very painful. Yet she didn't feel much in terms of pain but she assumed that was down to whatever painkillers they'd given her – they were bound to have given her something, right? Whatever it was, it was good, that much was for sure.

The American, she didn't know his name so that was the only way to distinguish him from the other medical professionals that appeared to have taken up permanent residence next to the bed she was currently occupying, spoke a few more words before she heard his footsteps come closer to the bed. She felt the blankets being moved aside slightly and a few more words of conversation were exchanged between him and someone else, who he was talking to, she couldn't quite tell. Then she felt pressure against the wound in her side and she almost cried out in pain as she tightened her grip on the blankets. She felt Nick take her hand and then she heard his voice gently encouraging her to squeeze his hand if she was in pain. She guessed that he wanted to get a feel for the amount of pain she was in. She didn't understand why suddenly she was in so much pain – there had been little to no pain a few moments ago.

Tears stung the back of her eyes as she felt a searing pain shoot through her side. She wasn't quite sure what was being done and if she was honest she didn't want to know – the pain she was feeling certainly spoke for itself. It hurt. It really hurt and a small anguished cry accidentally escaped her lips as the pain reached new heights. The pain was making her feel sick and dizzy and all she wanted to do was curl up into a corner and cry or failing that, sleep for a while.

The pressure on her side continued for a few more moments as the doctors discussed various forms of treatment. She was half listening to their conversation even though she couldn't understand the medical jargon they kept throwing about and half concentrating on trying not to throw up or fall back to sleep. She knew that Nick didn't want her to sleep, not yet at least and she knew that although she didn't necessarily agree with him, she had to trust him – he was the expert here, not her. He knew what was best for her at the current moment in time and although all she wanted to do was sleep, there had to be a reason why he didn't want her sleeping.

She felt Nick squeeze her hand in reassurance a few moments later and his voice telling her that she was doing fine and everything was going to be ok. She didn't quite know why he felt this sudden need to reassure her about everything but she wasn't complaining, it made her feel a tiny bit better knowing that he was there. He was her one constant in this crazy world of exhaustion and pain. She heard another buzz of conversation and finally, the pressure on her side ceased. The pain slowly began to ebb away until there was just a dull ache in her side. She didn't know why the pain had gone but she didn't care, she was just glad it wasn't there any more. She could cope with the ache but that previous pain had been unbearable – she'd never felt anything like it.

"We need to get to theatre asap." She heard the American speak again, informing Nick and whoever else was in the room of his decision. She didn't know who else was in the room and if she was honest, she didn't care. She just wanted this all to end, the pain, the exhaustion, everything.

Voices murmured around her, obviously agreeing to whatever plan of action the American doctor had proposed – she really needed to find out his name, she couldn't keep calling him "the American" even if it was only in her head – which was soon followed by clattering like the team were moving several pieces of equipment around. Footsteps approached the bed and hands removed different pieces of equipment that she was attached to before replacing it with something else. She felt something being placed next to her on the bed. It was obviously a portable piece of one of their many pieces of equipment but what exactly it was, she couldn't be sure. She found herself not really caring anyway. She just wanted to fall asleep and then wake up to find that everything was better. Realistically she knew that wasn't going to happen but there was no harm in thinking it, was there?

Nick was speaking to her again but she couldn't comprehend what he was saying – her head felt like someone had stuffed copious amounts of cotton wool inside it. Everything felt so far away and she couldn't quite hear people properly. It was almost like she was underwater. Somewhere in the distance, she heard another clatter, rather like the sound of the bed arms being pulled up. Then the bed was on the move and Nick's voice was becoming more and more distant as darkness threatened to overwhelm her once more. This time she couldn't fight it, she was too exhausted, physically and mentally, to fight it. Then nothing. Just peaceful, inky black darkness. Nothing could hurt her now.


End file.
